Shimla (Uttrakhand): Three illegal floors of the mosque in Sanjauli, the largest suburb of the capital city Shimla, will be demolished. The Commissioner Court of Shimla Municipal Corporation has given this decision on the application for its permission.
The Masjid Committee had taken the initiative and given a letter to the Municipal Commissioner for permission to demolish the illegal construction. In the second round of hearings on October 5, Commissioner Bhupendra Atri gave the permission to raze the illegal portion under the supervision of the Waqf Board.
The Masjid Committee will have to bear the cost of demolition to be completed in two months. At the same time, the hearing on the dispute related to other portions of the mosque will continue further. The next hearing has been scheduled for December 21. The court rejected the application to make the local people a party to the case.
It is worth mentioning that on September 12, the Sanjauli Masjid Committee itself went to the Municipal Commissioner's office and gave an application for approval to demolish the illegal floors. After the dispute over the Sanjauli mosque came to light, Hindu organizations protested across the state. Complaints of illegal construction in mosques were made in various districts including Mandi, Kullu and Bilaspur. The mosque on Jail Road in Mandi was sealed and its water and electricity connection was severed. At the same time, a large number of armed police personnel has been deployed on all three roads leading to Sanjauli mosque.
Meanwhile, Shoaib Jamai made a video of the mosque and uploaded it on the social media platform X, which miffed the Hindu organizations. In the video, Jamai called the surrounding buildings illegal and said why no action was taken against them. Thereafter, the Muslim side felt that the matter was getting worse and immediately called the media and denied Jamai's statement.
On August 30, a fracas took place between two communities in Malyana area of Shimla in which six Muslim youths who attacked. They took refuge in the mosque after the assault. After that hundreds of people including Congress councillor Neetu Thakur protested outside the mosque it was revealed that the upper floors of the mosque had been constructed illegally.
Rural Development Minister of the Congress-led government, Anirudh Singh, placed documents in the monsoon session of the assembly to claim that the mosque was built on government land. The cabinet minister revealed that 44 presentations have been made in the case in 14 years, but no decision has been taken yet. He demanded the demolition of the illegal construction of the mosque which echoed at the national level.
According to Shimla Municipal Corporation Commissioner Bhupendra Atri, the issue was first raised in 2010 when the pillars were erected. The committee was served a notice on that. The matter dragged till 2012 when the mosque committee took a NOC from the Waqf Board regarding the construction. In the NOC, the Waqf Board said the local committee can decide the construction on its own, provided it does the construction by taking necessary permissions from the corporation administration.
The mosque committee submitted the NOC and the map of the site to the corporation. However, there were many shortcomings which led the administration to instruct the mosque committee to work on those shortcomings. But neither the mosque committee nor the Waqf Board gave any representation to the corporation on the map. The illegal floors were constructed in three years between 2015 and 2018. A revised notice was served to the committee in 2019 and a notice was served to the Waqf Board on the wrong construction in July 2023. Former head of the mosque committee, Mohammad Latif, was also served the notice as the NOC from the Waqf was issued in his name.
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